Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antigens: structure and serology of multivalent human mucin MUC1-HIV V3 chimeric proteins.

Molecular modeling and two-dimensional NMR techniques enable us to identify structural features in the third variable region (V3) loop of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) surface glycoprotein gp120, in particular the principal neutralizing determinant (PND), that remain conserved despite the sequence variation. The conserved structure of the PND is a solvent-accessible protruding motif or a knob, structurally isomorphous with the immunodominant knobs in the tandem repeat protein of human mucin 1 (MUC1) (a tumor antigen for breast, pancreatic, and ovarian cancer). We have replaced the mucin antigenic knobs by the PND knobs of the HIV MN isolate in a set of chimeric human MUC1/HIV V3 antigens. This produced multivalent HIV antigens in which PNDs are located at regular intervals and separated by extended mucin spacers. In this article we show by two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy that the multivalent antigens preserve the PNDs in their native structure. We also demonstrate by ELISA that the antigens correctly present the PNDs for binding to monoclonal antibodies or polyclonal antisera from HIV-infected patients.